by Amy Andrews
It was a tough game, more like a tug-of-war, knee-deep in mud where every inch of ground gained felt like a major victory than a quick, fast change-around game where everyone struggled to keep up. It was like the Great War as opposed to Shock and Awe.
It didn’t help that Darcy’s mind was not on the game, either. No one could really tell—all her slips were easily put down to the rain and the deliberate targeting of the opposition.
But Darcy knew.
Last week she’d gone to the game totally energised. Of course that was mostly to do with the fact she’d been fresh from an injury and well rested. But that hadn’t been all of it. There’d been more to it and she’d known it.
She’d also been fresh out of bed with Levi.
And that had been like a blast of performance-enhancing drugs. A shot of wheat germ to her system. A hit of cocaine.
This week, she’d lain awake at night tossing and turning, a low hum of frustration buzzing away, making it impossible to get any sleep or concentrate for too long. She’d been avoiding Levi in case they ended up in bed again because she’d thought that would hinder her performance.
Oh the irony!
In actuality, not seeing Levi had impacted her performance.
And she didn’t think it was to do with sex. With them not having sex. Or denying themselves what they wanted. Darcy was certain it was to do with routine. She’d disrupted her regular routine—of which Levi was an integral part—and her body didn’t like it. It knew the parameters of its comfort zone, and Levi formed part of those parameters.
They lost the game. It was close and low scoring on both sides because of the weather, but the loss was shattering nonetheless. It meant they had to win the next game or they weren’t going to make it to the finals.
The Banshees consoled themselves with the knowledge it was going to be a home game. Having the home game advantage was not to be sneezed at. Being surrounded by your supporters was always a huge advantage. Hell, sometimes it could make the difference between winning and losing.
‘You okay?’ Levi asked as she arrived back home on Sunday afternoon around four. He was sitting on the couch but stood as she entered the apartment.
Darcy shook her head, ignoring the empathy in his voice. He was the one man in her life who understood better than anyone how much she liked to win and how hard on herself she was when she lost. And the irony was she only had herself to blame. She’d let things get weird between them.
Yes, their relationship had changed—undergone a seismic shift—but it didn’t mean it had to be weird.
He headed towards her without hesitation, pulling her roughly to him, and after a second or two of resistance, she melted into his arms ‘It was a tough game, Darcy.’
Darcy nodded. ‘It was. But my head wasn’t in the game.’
His arms tightened around her as if in reflex. ‘Because of me? Us?’
‘No.’ Darcy shook her head. ‘Because of me.’ She eased back from him slightly. ‘I’m too used to seeing you every day to go to not seeing you at all. Apparently my body isn’t a cold-turkey fan.’
He smiled. ‘Neither is mine.’
‘Do you think we can strike a happy medium?’
He hugged her to him again. ‘How about we get some Chinese delivered and we spend the night in front of the telly?’
Darcy nodded, a flood of relief that they could navigate this strange new temporary terrain swamping her. ‘Sounds like my kind of happy medium.’
Even if she was going to want to jump his bones the entire time.
‘I noticed you came down hard on your quad at one point?’
Darcy snorted. ‘Their whole defence was about making me come down hard on my quad.’
He eased back from their embrace, his gaze taking in her thigh and she could tell he’d gone into professional mode. ‘How’s it holding up?’
‘It’s fine. I’ve had a couple of rubs already.’
She had. And it was fine. It ached a little, but compared to what she’d been through during her injury, it was minor.
‘Get more if you need them.’
She nodded. ‘I will.’
He pulled away from their embrace altogether. ‘Let me guess. A number eight, a number eleven and a special fried rice?’
‘You know it.’
He saluted playfully then went to arrange the order. There was a lot to be said for a man who knew you so well he could rattle off your Chinese takeaway preferences and Darcy smiled at his back, suddenly so damn happy it even helped lessen the sting of losing.
***
Darcy eased onto the couch the next night, grimacing as her quad muscle protested the movement. She’d squatted a lot today at work, shifting a load of potting mix, and her already tender quad was feeling it.
‘Sore?’
She glanced up to find Levi watching her. He was in boxers and T-shirt. Her breath hitched at the way the fabric of his shirt strained across his broad shoulders and barely met the waistband of his boxers. He looked like a kid who had outgrown his clothes most of the time and it was endearing in a totally hot way.
She opened her mouth to deny his claim but he always knew when she was lying anyway. ‘Yeah. A little.’ She shut her eyes as she rubbed at the nagging ache in her muscle. ‘I’ll get some treatment for it at training tomorrow night.’
The disadvantage of not having the financial resources of the men’s teams, of being a part-time player, was part-time support. She opened her eyes and he’d disappeared and she sighed and flicked the telly on. She’d washed her hair and blow-dried it but it was still a little damp underneath. She planned to sit up for an hour or so and wait until it was thoroughly dry before she went to bed.
Darcy scanned the options on the Smart TV. A movie she’d started a few months back and never finished jumped out at her. Obviously Levi wasn’t going to be joining her tonight. Given how hard it had been to sit together and watch TV last night and not touch each other, she could hardly blame him.
She’d been so turned on by just their legs and arms occasionally brushing, she’d had some pretty vivid dreams once she’d finally fallen asleep.
She eased down until she was laying full supine on the couch, her head supported on the arm, her sore leg closest to the edge, and scrolled to the movie. She hit resume, which located the place she’d left off and started it from there. It was some kind of retro-futuristic thing, which seemed the perfect fit to take her mind off the do-or-die game on Sunday and the elephant in the room—the taut snap of sexual tension arcing between her and Levi.
A couple of minutes later, to her surprise, Levi joined her. He was carrying a small glass sampler bottle containing essential oils. He had a whole kit of them that he carried around in his backpack. Darcy called them his secret potions, which always made him laugh.
There hadn’t been much laughter between them this last week.
Darcy levered herself up on her elbows and curled her legs up to make room for him, expecting him to stretch out at his end of the couch. Instead he sat in the middle, about an arm’s length separating them, picked up her injured leg and set it down across his lap.
‘I’ll give it a rub.’
Chapter 12
Darcy’s breath caught in her throat and her quad twinged in anticipation. So did things a little further north. This seemed like dangerous territory to be treading. But she was far too weak to say no.
For one, it was exactly what her quad needed. And for two... it was exactly what her libido needed. She wanted him to touch her. Even if it was in that grit-your-teeth, dig-your-fingers-in, completely impersonal, therapeutic massage way of his.
Her body craved contact with his in the worst way.
Slowly she lowered herself down to the couch again, her head finding the arm and nestling there, her good leg stretching out and fitting in behind him. ‘Are you still watching this,’ he said conversationally, as he busied himself with the oil, pouring it into his hands and rubbing them together to heat it.
>
‘I’m determined to finish it,’ she said and then gasped as his hands slid onto her quad, hot and slippery with oil.
He paused, his hands still in place. ‘Is it that sore?’
Darcy’s eyes practically rolled back in her head as she choked out a, ‘No. Sorry. Just a bit jumpy.’ Plus she was excruciatingly aware that the hem of her boxers was gaping a little and he could probably see her underwear.
Hell, he could probably see what she had for breakfast.
‘Try and relax.’ His hands moved again, his palms flattening to distribute the oil all over the surface area of her quadriceps. ‘Let me know if I’m hurting, okay?’
She had no doubt it would hurt once Levi started properly and put his back into it, but at the moment it was sending hot shivers up her thigh. Shivers that settled right between her legs, tingling against her clitoris, making everything heat and ache.
‘Uh-huh.’ Somehow, she managed to force her head to the side and look at the television. To concentrate on the movie even as Levi turned slightly so he was more front on to the area of injury.
Darcy moaned at the first long swipe of Levi’s thumb from just above her knee to three-quarters of the way up her leg. She shut her eyes and bit her lip to stop herself from doing it again as he repeated the motion with his other thumb.
She’d expected the whole thing would be an exercise in physical torture. That his fingers would dig deep, finding all the knots and the inflammation, working them briskly to increase the blood flow and promote healing, like every other massage she’d had on it since the injury.
But it was the exact opposite.
There was nothing deep-tissue about the massage he was performing. It wasn’t vigorous or businesslike. It was slow and languorous, his thumbs repeatedly stroking in one direction, her skin slippery from the potent mix of heat and oil. It probably had no therapeutic benefit at all but bloody hell... it felt good.
Daaamn good.
It was pure and utter sexual torture—her breath hitching every time his thumb went higher, every cell in her body hoping it would keep going like she’d hoped that day he’d massaged her feet.
Higher. Higher. Higher...
She’d given up watching the movie in the first ten seconds, her eyes closing instead as his fingers worked her muscle. She lost track of time as she lay there in a state of bliss, everything loose and relaxed. Everything except her nipples, of course, which were wantonly standing to attention, tenting out the fabric of her tank top.
She should have been embarrassed by them. But she wasn’t. She was too damned turned on to be embarrassed by anything. Certainly not the way they rubbed erotically against her shirt as if Levi’s hands had pushed under her top to caress them as well.
Darcy squirmed as her pelvic floor muscles clenched.
‘You okay?’
Was it her imagination or was his voice husky? Was this massage affecting him as badly as it was affecting her? Was he as turned on as she was? She squirmed again as another deep clench shuddered deep and low.
‘I’m fine, I just...’ Darcy didn’t even let herself think the rest of that thought let alone say it.
‘What do you need, Darcy?’ His voice sounded like gravel.
Darcy’s eyes blinked open to find him looking at her. Their gazes locked. She finished the thought. ‘Higher.’
For a moment his thumbs stopped their stroking and she thought she’d blown it. She was probably going to go to hell for this, thinking about happy endings when Levi was just trying to help her with an injury. But then his gaze dropped and snagged on the way her nipples tented her tank top and she started to wonder about the purity of his motivations.
‘Like this?’
His thumbs very definitely moving higher. Darcy’s breath hitched. She nodded. But still not as high as she wanted. As she craved. Not as high as her underwear. As inside her underwear.
As inside her, filling her up. Getting her off.
‘Higher.’
His thumbs trekked a little higher and she shut her eyes, her pelvis shifting involuntarily, her pulse pounding through her temples. A whimper slipped from her throat before she could call it back and her eyes flew open.
‘Darcy?’
She watched the slow bob of his throat as he swallowed. She didn’t know what he was asking, she only knew what she wanted.
‘Levi... please.’ Their gazes locked as his thumbs swiped higher and higher, her skin prickling with goosebumps, her clitoris tingling almost to the point of pain, her hips circling involuntarily. ‘Higher.’
She knew exactly what she was asking him for and she didn’t care. Her nipples had hardened with each movement of his thumbs, she could feel the slickness between her legs dampening her underwear and her throat had thickened to the point even breathing was difficult.
But his hands kept going, their gazes still locked as he pushed his thumbs under the hem of her boxers, sweeping inward, brushing her inner thigh and the leg elastic of her underwear, whispering against the swollen folds of her sex.
Darcy cried out and arched her back. ‘Yes.’ She panted heavily, half out of her mind for the need of him. ‘Right there.’
***
Levi sucked in a ragged breath. He should not be doing this. It was so far from professional it bordered on illegal. Sure, Darcy wasn’t a client, this wasn’t a job and they weren’t at work—there was no impropriety here.
But still... he wasn’t in the happy endings business.
Except for right now, apparently, because he absolutely knew as his fingers breached the elastic of Darcy’s underwear and slid into the slickness between her legs, that happy-ending-landia was exactly where this was heading.
Hell, it had been since her first moan and the way she’d shifted and whimpered as his hands had drifted higher. Despite the fact they were supposed to be keeping things friendly and hands-off.
There was nothing hands-off about this.
His intentions had been pure. He really had meant this to be a therapeutic thing in the beginning. When he’d gone and got the oil, when he’d sat on the couch, when he’d placed her thigh over his. But then he’d looked right up the leg of her boxers and seen her underwear and all his good intentions had been blown to hell.
He’d had a hard-on since he’d first laid his hands on her and there was only so long he could resist the message her body was giving him before his body got fully on board.
‘Jesus, Darcy,’ he muttered, his throat rough as gravel as his finger swept down the seam of her sex, her juices coating him instantly. ‘You’re so fucking wet.’
She moaned and then gasped as he pushed his finger inside her hot, tight channel. ‘So fucking wet,’ he muttered, his pulse raging as he added another finger, making her clamp down around him and arch her back. He glanced up her body, two taut points atop the rounded mounds of her breasts poking at the fabric of her shirt.
Levi couldn’t stand it anymore. He removed his hands from her pants and slid them both to her hips, dragging her boxers and her underwear down in one movement. Her hips lifted eagerly as he stood to strip them down her legs and throw them on the floor. Then he was back, sliding onto the couch onto his belly, settling his head between her legs and thanking God for their really long couch.
‘Levi?’ She’d lifted her head to look at him down her body. Her gaze was hot, lust and need swirling there as his eyes met hers.
‘Shh,’ he whispered, the aroma of her arousal intoxicating this close to the slickness between her legs. He pushed his hands under the hem of her tank top and pushed it all the way up her body, exposing her stomach and her ribs, the fullness of her breasts and the nipples standing stiffly to attention.
Levi groaned at the sight, his thumbs brushing across her nipples without conscious direction. She moaned and arched her back again, her head dropping heavily against the arm of the couch.
His first taste of her was everything he’d been dreaming about, warm and salty on his lips, and the way she calle
d his name, ‘Leeeevi,’ all low and drawn-out made him want to keep doing it until she was screaming his name and clawing up his back.
He savoured her over and over, using the flat of his tongue to swipe right up her middle, parting her, tasting the swollen contours of her slick folds. The tip of his tongue found the hard little bundle of nerves and he circled it as his fingers clamped down on her nipples.
She bucked against him and Levi did it again and again, a very masculine roar of satisfaction pounding through his blood as she gasped, ‘Levi,’ and burrowed her fingers into his hair, holding him there, grinding against his face as she built rapidly to her orgasm.
When she was trembling so badly he knew she was close, Levi sucked her clit hard between his teeth and her orgasm roared out of her. She stiffened in his arms before flying apart.
‘Leeeevi!’
He held her through it, feasting and nuzzling between her legs, his hard tongue flaying her clit as she cried out to him over and over. His cock bucked in response and he pushed it hard into the cushions, ignoring the powerful dictates of his body urging him to seek his own release.
That could wait.
Finally she collapsed spent against the couch, grasping his head, pulling at his hair, begging him to stop. Only then did Levi lift his head, staring up at her from between her legs.
God. She was beautiful. Her belly bare, her breasts in his hands, her mouth parted, her face so damned chill it looked like it was about to slide right off.
He pressed kisses to her inner thighs and waited for her to come back to herself, watching the transformation as her expression became more formed and her nipples gradually lost their stiffness.
Slowly she raised her head off the arm and smiled at him. ‘You really do have magic hands.’
Levi chuckled. ‘Your thigh’s all better then?’
‘Thigh? What thigh?’ She smiled again then crooked her finger. ‘Come here.’
Levi’s pulse spiked at the gleam in her eyes but he knew he’d follow the direction of that imperious finger wherever the hell it lead him. He dropped one last kiss on her thigh before nuzzling his way up her body—taking his time.
